This is a domestic thriller following family Matthew, Charlie, and Titus and the year leading up to a deadly dinner with Rachel - a woman they think they met by chance. Matthew is stabbed at the dinner table, Rachel calls the police and confesses immediately, leaving Charlie and Titus to navigate their new family structure and the murder investigation as everyone tries to figure out why Rachel killed Matthew. Told in dual timeline and dual POV, we follow Rachel and Charlie and slowly find out the truth of their relationship and what happened during the dinner.
The beginning of this book was my favorite part but I know some readers will disagree. The prologue starts off when the police show up at Charlie and Matthew's home and start processing the scene. There is a slight hint at the end of the prologue that maybe not all is as it seems and then in chapter 1 we jump to 12 months in the past and pick up the story from there to work forward to the murder. I personally love this structure where we know the ending and then the fun is the journey of how we get there. However, I know that not everyone feels the same way. I don't feel like the prologue spoils anything more than the book description, in general, does. I watched a video from Kate Cavanaugh recently where she discusses why she sometimes skips prologues and I could see why people would skip this type of prologue. I will say the book doesn't end at the murder, so there is more revealed after the dinner in the overall plot of the book. Like I said, I just really enjoy this structure where I know what happens but finding how exactly how everything plays out.
I really enjoyed the world building that Walter did in in this story. The story is set in London, but there are a lot of intricacies that come into play in regards to the different classes the characters belong to and how that informs their world view and actions. For example, upon meeting Rachel, Charlie feels something is off about her but he can't explain why. Matthew accuses Charlie of not liking her because she's lower class and a little different from all their other posh friends. This adds and extra layer of tension to the story because now Charlie is double guessing his feelings but it also a bit put off that Matthew would accuse him of being judgemental like that. We also see Rachel's home with her father so we get a direct contrast to the very luxurious life she's managed to find for herself in the story and we get a bit of her feelings on the issue. All the little details really made this upper class group of people that Rachel was infiltrating feel like a whole other world with their own rules and guidelines.
I thought the overall premise of the book was really interesting and one of my favorite thriller/mystery/horror premises of the stranger infiltrating someone's life. We know from the beginning that Rachel has some sort of ulterior motive when it comes to getting close to Charlie and Matthew but we don't know the details. Charlie and Matthew just think they've made a new friend at the bookstore and have no idea that the wheels of disaster have been set in motion. It is a very suspenseful premise that I think really pays off at the end when all is revealed. I also think that the structure of having very short chapters and switching perspectives and timelines often help raise that suspense and tension. This story really put into perspective that adults making friends is pretty difficult outside of school or work so I found the initial meeting very plausible. I know my partner is routinely striking up conversations with people when he goes out shopping and I could absolutely see him doing something like this (which terrifies me, an avid reader of thrillers and other such murder books). In any case, I'd say this is a really solid example of this trope of the mysterious stranger coming into the main character's life only to turn it head over heels.
The main part I disliked is that at about the 70% mark, all the secrets start to be revealed but it is done mostly by characters simply confessing to other characters. I think the reveals would have been more impactful for both the characters and the reader if they were uncovered in a more active manner. Also, the information revealed was very significant to the characters - so much so that I was surprised it didn't show up sooner in the book. The characters, for the most part, were very polished and put together for the first 70% of the story and then suddenly they had all these big flaws and personal histories revealed. I would have expected these types of flaws to have shown up in other parts of the characters' lives earlier in the story. I wanted cracks in the otherwise pristine facade the characters were putting on. Or maybe something like they catch themselves thinking X because of their history with Y and have to talk themselves out of thinking like that. But I didn't pick up on any cracks until everything goes from 0 to 60. I'm more of a fan of the slow and steady build up and I think if these reveals were to be hinted at earlier in the book it would have upped the tension for me. I really liked the actual topics of the reveals and I for sure didn't see anything close to that coming (which I know some readers prefer in their mysteries/thrillers). There was one character, specifically, whose flaw was a pretty significant character aspect that I really thought should be affecting the day to day life of that character more.
When I initially finished the book, I was mad at the ending. It wasn't that it was a bad ending, but I was just so emotionally invested in these characters that I ended up rooting for the one that ends up 'losing' in the end so I was a bit upset. But after a few days of reflection, I did end up on the side of really enjoying the ending and I think it was really the only appropriate way for the story to end considering how all the plot lines were intersecting. The last chapter picks up about 7 months after the murder where we see the surviving members of the dinner party moving on with their lives. There's a vague cloud hanging over them about what happened that night, but overall they are going forward with no plans to speak about the events again. So we have a good amount of closure with a little window that maybe something will happen down the line that will uncover certain truths that are currently buried. Then we get an epilogue from 3 years in the future that shows just how delicate the situation ends up being and the epilogue leaves us with a pretty significant cliff hanger-y type ending where we know shit is about to hit the fan but we don't get to see how everything plays out.
Overall, a very solid domestic thriller that pulled me right in at the beginning with the mystery of who Rachel is and what she wants with Charlie and Matthew but lost me a bit at the end.
Thanks to NetGalley and One More Chapter for the ARC.
Expected publication date is April 1, 2021.
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